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> On average, who's going to be better at writing code, the one who has done a side coding project in the past 10 years whilst developing, or the one who hasn't
by hhmc 4y ago
> On average, who's going to be better at writing code, the one who has done a side coding project in the past 10 years whilst developing, or the one who hasn't but only worked a job?
You’re clearly leading toward the former, but I could just as easily make an argument for the latter.
In my experience, people with edifying jobs (usually because the problems are harder), are less likely to need to scratch the same itch outside of work.
I think requiring side projects not only shrinks the candidate pool, but also leads to adverse selection.
- nicolas_t 4y agoI've hired about 25 developers so far. So far, the 8 developers out of those 25 who had actual side projects (even not production ready and with caveats they told me ahead of time) have ended up being head and shoulders above the others. Of course, there's not enough data to make a foolproof conclusion but I'd say that so far for me, having side projects that a dev can show is a clear indicator that they are an interesting candidate. And when counting side projects, I count tools developers make to make their life easier and in my experience even great developers with edifying jobs will have situations where they create some small tools to help make their life easier.